Kenwood Blankets

Susan Brown

Fig. 1 Dorothy Liebes, Design for a Blanket, 1952; Graphite and gouache collage on paper; Dorothy Liebes Papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC

Textile designer Jack Lenor Larsen said of Dorothy Liebes that she was “assured and convincing enough to persuade clients to their best effort.” [1] This quality is evident in her work with Kenwood Mills, who engaged her in 1950 as a stylist for their blankets. Blankets might have seemed limited in scope for a designer like Liebes: She was famous for her unusual combinations of materials, but all-wool blankets were preferred; her client also exhorted her to avoid complex weave structures. Kenwood sold blankets to department stores and other retail outlets, but also to hotels and hospitals, so the products were required to be affordable, durable, and marketable to customers with wide-ranging needs (Figs. 1–3). 

“We have approached the problem from three angles—color, the binding, and the stitchery,” Liebes wrote to her contact at Kenwood. “After all, there is nothing much else.” [2] She approached each element with rigor. She conducted market research and experimented with various materials for the binding—satin, taffeta, velvet, and printed cottons for children’s blankets—in widths varying from three to five inches. She worked with a ribbon manufacturer to develop a Greek fret–style pattern, incorporating a K to distinguish Kenwood’s blankets from those of its competitors. She also incorporated a stripe of silver Lurex in the binding as a brand signature (and yet another example of cross-promotion for two of her clients). She provided lists of color names and even advised on the blankets’ packaging. [3] 

By 1953, Kenwood was sufficiently convinced of the value of Liebes’s name, skill, and connections to collaborate with her on a high-end limited-edition collection of fashion-forward blankets. Liebes developed a double-loop structure in lofty bouclé yarns to create a texture described in the press release as “whirls of fleecy froth” (Fig. 4). [4] The collection was called Astra-Ken, a play on the lamb-fleece furs known in the fashion industry as astrakhan. The fluffy wool was paired with velvet binding ribbons. But color was the real story. Liebes was an avid museumgoer and spoke often of the importance of studying art to develop new color ideas. With Astra-Ken, she made this process manifest, keying her unusual color pairings to works by well-known painters: “A soft green blanket bound in gold is a subtle interpretation from [Vincent] Van Gogh’s palette . . . [Marie] Laurencin colors find expression in a pink blanket trimmed with turquoise” (Figs. 4, 5). [5] Each of the six colorways was linked to a different painting, and the marketing materials included reproductions of the paintings with fabric samples attached, biographies of the artists, and a pamphlet of display suggestions evoking a display of fine art.  

Liebes’s deep understanding of decorating trends and her close connections to the fashion industry made the cross-over collection a success. “Your new Astra-Ken blankets have caused a great deal of excitement at Vogue,” Jessica Daves, editor in chief, wrote. “The new weave and the extraordinarily effective new colour combinations have made us ‘extend ourselves’ in the matter of editorial showing; we had reserved one page for this story, but when the photographs came in, we had to give it two pages” (Fig. 6). [6] The spread featured the two stars of Wonderful Town on Broadway: Rosalind Russell, wrapped in the ivory blanket with orange binding inspired by Paul Cézanne, and George Gaynes, with the black-and-red colorway credited to Henri Matisse and marketed as particularly appropriate for a man’s bedroom or study (Fig. 7). The spread opened the holiday shopping section of the magazine and was reproduced for in-store displays.  

NOTES 

[1] Jack Lenor Larsen, “Dorothy Liebes: A Tribute,” Craft Horizons 32, no. 6 (December 1972): 11, 66.  

[2] Dorothy Liebes, letter to Mr. J. Tracy Colby (Kenwood Mills), n.d. Series 5, Box 10, Folder 13, Dorothy Liebes Papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. 

[3] See Dorothy Liebes Papers, Kenwood correspondence. Series 5, Box 10, Folders 10–20, Dorothy Liebes Papers. 

[4] Kenwood Blankets, press release for Astra-Ken, October 15, 1953. Box 20, Folder 2, Dorothy Liebes Papers. 

[5] Ibid.  

[6] Jessica Daves (Vogue magazine), letter to Paul Eager (Kenwood Mills), August 25, 1953. Box 20, Folder 2, Dorothy Liebes Papers.

 

Drawing for a blanket with an off-white background, yellow squares, and a grid of lines in bright blue, with bright blue fringe on top and bottom.

Fig. 1 Dorothy Liebes, Design for a Blanket, 1952; Graphite and gouache collage on paper; Dorothy Liebes Papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC

Drawing for a blanket in light blue with concentric squares of yellow and twill patterning indicated by diagonal lines in darker blue. 

Fig. 2 Dorothy Liebes, Design for a Blanket, 1952; Graphite and gouache collage on paper; Dorothy Liebes Papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC

Vertical rectangle of woven fabric in yellow, gray, yellow, and ivory plaid. 

Fig. 3 Dorothy Liebes, Sample for a Woven Blanket, circa 1952; Power-loomed plain and twill-woven cotton, viscose rayon; Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum; Museum purchase through gift of Mrs. John Innes Kane, 1948-26-2

Advertisement with a black-and-white photograph of a woman in a robe; in the foreground, a pink nubby blanket with turquoise binding.

Fig. 4 Tear sheet, “The Most Beautiful Evening Wrap in the World the new Astra-Ken Blanket,” Vogue (October 15, 1953); Series 5, Box 20, Folder 2, Dorothy Liebes Papers

Print of a painting of a vase of sunflowers, with a white border. Nubby green wool and yellow velvet fabric swatches stapled to upper right corner. 

Fig. 5 Kenwood Blankets promotional material, Vincent Van Gogh, Sunflowers; Series 5, Box 20, Folder 2, Dorothy Liebes Papers

Double-page magazine spread. On the left, a woman in a red dress with a white collar reclines in a chair; a white blanket with orange binding is draped over her lower body. On the right, a man in a red smoking jacket reclines in a chair reading a book; a black blanket with red binding covers his legs.

Fig. 6 Tear sheet, “Two Fixed Stars in New Christmas Wraps,” Vogue (November 1, 1953); Series 5, Box 31, Folder 1, Dorothy Liebes Papers

Print of a painting of a still life with orange-colored fruits in two bowls and a pitcher on a table with a white cloth. Swatches of nubby ivory wool and bright orange velvet are stapled to the upper right corner.

Fig. 7 Kenwood Blankets promotional material, Paul Cézanne, Still Life with Fruit; Series 5, Box 20, Folder 2, Dorothy Liebes Papers

Susan Brown

Susan Brown is Associate Curator and Acting Head of Textiles at Cooper Hewitt, where she has curated over a dozen exhibitions including Fashioning Felt (2009), Color Moves: Art and Fashion by Sonia Delaunay (2011), Scraps: Fashion, Textiles and Creative Reuse (2016), Suzie Zuzek for Lilly Pulitzer: The Prints that Made the Fashion Brand (2021) and A Dark, A Light, A Bright: The Designs of Dorothy Liebes (2023).